For years, readers have turned to the work of Brooklyn College Distinguished Professor of English and acclaimed author Ben Lerner to see what he would write next. This time, however, the script has flipped: instead of writing the book, Lerner is the one being written about.
Routledge has published Ben Lerner, Edges of Genre: Poetry, Fiction, Artistic Collaborations, the first comprehensive academic study devoted to Lerner’s work. Co-edited by scholars Yannicke Chupin and Karim Daanoune, the volume brings together 14 essays by international critics and researchers examining Lerner’s contributions to contemporary literature, poetry, fiction, criticism, and artistic collaboration. The collection also includes an unpublished piece by Lerner, titled Erring Together.
A celebrated novelist, poet, essayist, and professor in the Department of English, Lerner has built a career exploring and challenging the boundaries between literary forms. The new volume argues that his work consistently crosses and redefines the lines between poetry and prose, narrative and criticism, and literature and other artistic media. According to the publisher, the book is the first study to situate Lerner’s writing within the broader field of contemporary intermedial and cross-genre literature.
The publication marks a notable milestone in Lerner’s career. Authors are accustomed to filling pages with words; few reach the point where hundreds of pages are devoted to understanding, analyzing, and debating those words. In a fitting twist for a writer whose work often reflects on authorship itself, Lerner now finds himself on the other side of the sentence.
